The Erosion of the Arab State in Global and Regional Contexts

Volume 14|Issue 78| |Articles

Abstract

​The 2011 Arab uprisings sparked hopes for positive change in the regional politics of the Middle East. The uprisings not only challenged the authority of states at the domestic level but seemed poised to disrupt regional geopolitics and alter the position of the Middle East in the international system. With the outbreak of civil wars in Syria, Libya, and Sudan, military interventions in Bahrain and Yemen, and the unprecedented proliferation of armed nonstate actors in the region, the uprisings seem to drive important changes in the nature of the state and its regional and international role. Despite its artificial inception and its puzzling survival throughout the 20th century, the Arab State faces challenges in the post-2011 era and its vulnerabilities have been exposed. While the uprisings may have weakened Arab states, changes at regional and international levels created permissive conditions to challenge the regional state system. Hamas's 7 October 2023 operation and Israel's ensuing wars in the region have further exacerbated state erosion and reinvigorated post-2011 regional dynamics. This paper examines how structural international and regional conditions have reshaped statehood and agency in the region post-2011. It also explores how the responses of Arab states to international conditions and the regional reverberations of the uprisings have further generated disintegrative effects for the Arab state.

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​Associate Professor in International Relations of the Middle East, University of Birmingham, United Kingdom. ​

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